When the Chronicle gets nearer to the compiler's own times it becomes slightly more interesting, but also slightly less fair. Throughout the fourth century a few little remarks are interspersed in the dry list of names and dates, the general tendency of which is to praise up the Gothic nation or to extenuate their faults and reverses. The battle of Pollentia (402[36]) is unhesitatingly claimed as a Gothic victory; the clemency of Alaric at the capture of Rome (410) is magnified; the valour of the Goths is made the cause of the defeat of Attila in the Catalaunian plains (451); the name of Gothic Eutharic is put before that of Byzantine Justin in the consular list; and so forth. Upon the whole, as has been already said, the work cannot be considered as adding to the reputation of its author; nor can it be defended from the terrible attack which has been made upon it by that scholar of our own day whose opinion upon such a subject stands the highest, Theodor Mommsen[37]. Only, when he makes this unfortunate Chronicle reflect suspicion on the other works of Cassiodorus, and especially on the Gothic History[38], the German scholar seems to me to chastise the busy Minister more harshly than he deserves. [Footnote 36: Clinton's date for this battle, 403, differs from that assigned by Cassiodorus, and is, in my judgment, erroneous.] [Footnote 37: Abhandlungen der philologisch-historischen Klasse der Koeniglich Saechsischen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften, iii. 547-696.] [Footnote 38: 'Dass die ganze Procedur von der uebelsten Art ist und den viel gefeierten gothischen Historiker in jeder weise compromittirt, bedarf keiner Ausaneindersetzung' (l.c. 564).] [Sidenote: The Gothic History.]